Water Street

at the end of

my father's life, his

brother brought him

takeout matzoh brie

from the deli on

Water Street

the Jewish part of

town in Worcester where

my Russian grandfather

knew everyone, having

built a factory to produce

upholstered furniture

he came from Odessa

the story goes, as a teenager

fleeing as so many did

first to France, where he

boarded a boat that took

him to Ellis Island

and changed his name

to Kramer because it was

easier to say and spell

he met my grandmother who,

like himself, came from the

Ukraine, a tiny village on

the Black Sea

and they had children, a

daughter and two sons, my

dad the oldest

my dad and my uncle took

over the factory when my Papa

retired, as good sons do

my uncle resented the job

and always wanted to do

something more glamorous with

his MIT degree

sometimes his fury was

hurled at my dad, who quietly

accepted it as his due

and yet, when he knew

his brother was dying, my uncle

drove the distance to Water Street

to the deli where we would eat

half-sour pickles, pastrami

and ordered fried matzie, as

he pronounced it

my uncle sat beside my father

and said: Les, it's your favorite

from Weintraub's Deli

but my father, already

prepared for the next voyage

refused the food, its jumble of

eggs and matzoh and onions

bringing the ghost of his

mother, my Nana, to the table

where she hovered, never sat

at the end, my father stopped

speaking, but when he died

we heard him in the Kaddish

Written by Julie Kramer, August 2021, Author of a collection of poems, I Didn’t Come Here to Fight.

Julie and her father during her high school years.